“She was strong and very single minded and not willing to accept that a nation could invade another nation in that way.

“That was important for us as a nation and one the broader stage.”

Lord West said it sent a signal that the “old man of Europe” could succeed even 8,000 miles away.

“It gave us a certain confidence as a nation and we did not look back,” he said.

Simon Weston, who suffered severe burns when the RFA Sir Galahad was bombed, said: “It was a brave decision to go to war and it was the right decision.

“Margaret Thatcher has been proven to be right and freedom of democracy is something everyone should strive for.

“If I had to go to war then she is the leader that I would have wanted to have and I am very proud that she was.”

Commander John Muxworthy, founder and chief executive of the UK National Defence Association (UKNDA), was a Lt Commander and Royal Navy supply officer on the SS Canberra during the conflict.

He said: “We would never have been sent and the country would be a very, very different place had it not been for Margaret Thatcher’s guts and courage.

“Every single person down there admired what she was doing.

“She had the strength of commitment and for me, she is the best Prime Minister this country as had for a very, very long time. She is the equivalent of Winston Churchill.

“She is also the last Prime Minister to have not cut the Armed Forces.”

The legislative assembly of the Falkland Islands said that Baroness Thatcher's "friendship and support" to the territory would be "sorely missed".

Assembly member Mike Summers said: "It is with great sadness that we received news of the death of Baroness Thatcher this morning.

"She will be forever remembered in the Islands for her decisiveness in sending a task force to liberate our home following the Argentine invasion in 1982."

Mr Summers said that while many had contributed to the British victory in the 1982 conflict, it was Lady Thatcher who "led the decision-making".

In the statement, issued on behalf of the legislative assembly, he said: "Our sincere gratitude was demonstrated in 1983 when she was granted the Freedom of the Falkland Islands.

"Her friendship and support will be sorely missed, and we will always be thankful for all that she did for us.

"The thoughts and deepest sympathies of all Falkland islanders are with her family and friends at this sad time."

Flags on the islands were flying at half-mast today following the news of the death, according to Falklands Islands newspaper Penguin News.

The defeat of Argentina's Falkland Islands invaders marked both the summit and the greatest trauma of Lady Thatcher's tempestuous premiership.

She recounted how, as a woman alone, she had to force herself to remain composed in front of TV cameras while inside she felt ready to cry while young Britons were dying 8,000 miles from Downing Street.

But after the agony, she said: "What the Falklands proved was that we could still do it, and do it superbly. There was a feeling of colossal pride, of relief, that we could still do the things for which we were renowned. And that feeling will stay with us for a very long time."

Although the sovereignty of the Falklands had been a simmering issue between London and Buenos Aires, Mrs Thatcher had no inkling that the landing of a few so-called scrap merchants on South Georgia in March 1982, and the running up of the Argentine flag there, would blow up into the greatest British campaign since the Second World War.

She declared: "If anyone had told me at the beginning that we should send 27,000 men and over 100 ships, I wouldn't have believed it."

Private paper released earlier this year revealed how the Prime Minister had to battle against her Cabinet to press ahead with a full – scale military response to Argentina's invasion.

The files include a strongly worded draft letter she never sent to the then US President Ronald Reagan revealing her huge frustration at moves by both the Americans and her own Cabinet to offer a ceasefire, abandoning the principle that the Falkland islanders should decide their own destiny.

But she was always grateful of the support of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach, who was First Sea Lord at the time.

His advice was clear: the Falklands should be recaptured, “Because if we do not, or if we pussyfoot in our actions and do not achieve complete success, in another few months we shall be living in a different country whose word counts for little”.

On March 25, Argentine supply ships landed stores on South Georgia. This was airily dismissed at first by Downing Street, but it quickly became apparent that this was the forerunner to a full-scale military invasion of the Falkland Islands, known to Argentina as Las Malvinas.

A week later, Britain called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, warning that Argentina was about to invade the Falklands. And the following day, April 2, President Leopoldo Galtieri announced that his forces had landed on the islands and "reclaimed" them for Argentina.

The invasion brought with it the resignation of the then foreign secretary, Lord Carrington, and the declaration by the Prime Minister that Britain would recover the Falklands.

On April 5, Mrs Thatcher ordered a task force to sail for the Falklands to undertake what military experts feared was a dangerous gamble – fighting a war 8,000 miles from home.

It was the biggest UK naval operation since the Second World War. Within two months, on May 21, the first British troops were wading ashore on one of the rocky beaches, and on June 14, Argentine troops surrendered at Port Stanley.

But within that period, 1,000 men were killed, including more than 400 in the Argentine warship the Belgrano, a sinking which has remained a hotbed of controversy ever since.

Throughout the conflict, Mrs Thatcher wore black. She constantly spoke of "our boys". It was for her, more than anyone else except those fighting the war, 74 days of trauma.

But the war changed her. "It puts other worries in perspective – and always will," she said. "It makes you very impatient when people magnify small worries into big ones.

"When it was all over there was a tremendous sense of relief. A feeling that whatever problems I have to go through now, at least I won't have to go through that terrible period when every time the phone rings, every time the door opens, you worry."

The following January, Mrs Thatcher visited the Falklands. She was greeted like a saint by the Falklanders as their saviour.